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Bored Invents

On 6th
December, 2018, the Adelaide Oval was the Playboy Mansion. India’s batsmen with
their raging cricketing hormones were out in the middle. They wanted first bite
of that red cherry, all of them, all at once.

Fast boy,
KL Rahul first. He already had a reputation. And he wasn’t about to not let it
get the better of him. Full and juicy, how could he resist – even if it meant
going a little astray so early in the day.

Now what
is it with such temptations, they can make a monk into a monkey. Especially the
whippy, full ones outside off. To hell with the vows of the parish, Vijay just
wanted a quick thrust through covers. He wanted to belong. To play dirty too.

Skipper
had been too good for too long. And like his two boys on top, he too wanted to
go missionary. Not such a man’s world
anymore.

Like the
vices of the men before him, the vice-captain in a rush of blood (to never mind
where), was yet another fallen man.

Rohit
returned, hoping to rein himself and his appetite; but down that dark passage
of excess he went; nigh fall to night fall, to yet another brazen end.

From 3/1
to 86/5, through all this stood, a man of prayer, not drawn by excess. With the
body not adrift from his mind, he looked ahead, neglecting those salivating slips
behind.

Lure they
did, laugh did they; mock on mike, strike rates, the usual bile, little did
they know, out there stood, all alone, more than a man, something of an Isle.

*****

"To hold your mind for so long is the most
difficult part of batting. He is able to bat those long innings because he can
hold his mind." – Arvind Pujara on his son,
Cheteshwar (from The Commandment of Che)

Sometimes, watching Che bat
in the middle, it appears there is more than one man who is holding his mind.
Articles on him document the work that has gone into making, possibly, the last
Test batsman.

While most cricketers have
had a family member toil endlessly for their child’s success, here it seems
like a continuous work in progress. So while Che bats in the middle, father,
Arvind plots, drafts, redrafts on the side lines.

That Che has been a
continuous work in progress for the team management, that has looked to bend
and alter him, make him confirm to war-room words, would be yet another
challenge for father and son.

Being dropped repeatedly, if
not for Rohit Sharma, then most recently for KL Rahul in England, must take
some head holding.

The head holds the game,
stringing together three half centuries in India’s three wins overseas in 2018.
The only one in the team to pull that off. Had he been allowed to bat in
Birmingham, who knows that may well have been four. Instead, Rahul at three
mustered 2(4) and 13(24). India lost by 30 runs. Kohli conquered England but
India failed again.

Often a cricketer does not
bat merely against the uncertainly in the middle, but the quandaries in the
dressing room; from those 22 yards to a Scotland yard inquisition, it can be
all happening and un-happening, within weeks of each other.

There is no denying that
Kohli is the most self-assured batsman in the team. He cannot be dropped. He
rests himself. No other Indian batsman, not Rahane, his deputy, nor Pujara, the
supposed Test match mainstay, have comfort in similar knowledge.

Shastri-Kohli or Kohli-Shastri
have run the team like Dr Evil and Mini Me. It seems funny, almost foolish but
the consequences are dire.

Had Kohli to play for India
with the same uncertainty over his place in the team, what kind of a player would
he have made?

Pujara made his Test debut
in October, 2010, playing 65 Tests. Kohli made his Test debut in June 2011,
playing 74 Tests. Both average over 50.

With the benefit of
hindsight, we know with utmost clarity what Dravid-Tendulkar (both Test
averages of 50+) brought to the team. And great as Sehwag, Laxman and Ganguly
were, their averages were less than 50. So too with Rahane, Dhawan, Vijay,
Rahul, Rohit. Dravid at three, Tendulkar at four. Pujara at three, Kohli at
four. In the shade of a great No. 3, often, the greatest batsmen come together.

On 8th December, 2018, the
Adelaide Oval was the Playboy Mansion. Again. Once smitten, twice? Two down, Pujara built on the frugality of
the first dig with his captain. Outside off, abstained. For over 30 overs,
Kohli embraced the Pujara way. Striking in the 30s, it spawned disbelief.

By not
taking the bait, Kohli-Pujara had baited commentary. It was commentary that
chose to oblivious of a player, a game, a Test. They took the easy way, because
those in the middle did not.

A
preoccupation with strike rates, that bait a shrinking cricket audience into a
perpetual state of impatience. Yet it was in those 32.5 overs that Kohli-Pujara
set the roadmap for the Test, daresay, the series.

There will
be denial. Self-denial. On this denial will be built expression.
Self-expression. Of the batsman that follow. Of a muddling Rahane to a middling
Rahane. Of a raving Pant to a raging Pant.

Yet with
both, the lures of the Playboy mansion struck again. For they are only human. More
human than Pujara. But surely not as human as Shami?

****

So, what is
it to inhabit an unwelcome space? Where you’re reminded of your inadequacies?
That your ways are not the way to be. That you are the odd one out.

Do you even
out or embrace that oddness – do you, in a quest for control, slow down some
more. That everything around seems to slow down too, and like an orphaned puppy
at your feet, awaiting your next command.

Eventually
the bowling too, comes to you. As Pujara had predicted.

When you defend
confidently you know you are in command, you are on top of the bowler, and he
doesn't have a chance to get you out. You will ultimately score runs when he
bowls a loose ball. – Cheteshwar
Pujara (from The Commandment of Che)

India 214/8. CA Pujara 89*
(224). In the next 22 deliveries Pujara faced, he made it to 123 (246) – that’s
34 off 22 balls, including a couple of 4s and 6s. There’s only so much a man,
even Pujara, can deny himself. More so if he’s batting with Shami.

By the
second innings, for the first time in his career, Pujara had strung together
two 50+ scores in an overseas’ Test match.

It was time
for the team to embrace its elder brother, it was time for them to know that
Che was now Cheta*.

1 comment:

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